I’ve often said the Blue Bombers don’t do nearly enough to recognize their storied history.

Thursday they took a small step in the right direction, honouring the four players whose faces adorn the main entry points to the new stadium.

I say it’s a small step, because the Bombers need to do a lot more.

Once you get past the gates marking the careers of Ken Ploen, Joe Poplawski, Milt Stegal and Doug Brown, selected through fan voting, there’s not a single reminder of this team’s tradition, aside from a couple of posters inside the store.

There was supposed to be a Hall of Fame in the concourse. Somehow it got forgotten in the haste to construct the place on time, a year late, and on budget.

“I remember that being promoted,” Poplawski, a former board member, told me during a walk around the place. “I don’t know what happened to it.”

Thursday we heard some vague reference to the front office doing more, but it was short on specifics.

So for now we get the Fab Four, and while you could certainly argue with the selections — Chris Walby, perhaps the best O-lineman the CFL has ever seen, is noticeable by his absence — you can’t argue their profiles.

“It’s overwhelming,” Brown said of being a permanent fixture of Gate 3, alongside University Crescent. “We’re standing on the shoulders of giants of this organization. I’m glad they made that distinction between fan favourites and greatest players of all time. I’d be hard-pressed to measure up with some of the greats.”

Brown acknowledged being recently retired and having a high profile likely earned him the vote over 1980s-era Walby.

Over at Gate 4, Joe Pop would have gladly stepped aside for running mate James Murphy.

“Blown away,” is how the former receiver described his reaction at being chosen.

That’s also a good way to describe the early stages of Poplawski’s Bomber tryout in 1978 — as a kicker.

“The Eskimos dealt me here almost like an afterthought,” he recalled. “For three days I’m not even given a play book.”

He latches onto one Harry Knight pass — “Dieter Brock wasn’t throwing the ball to me” — then another, and the rest is history.

Head south, alongside Chancellor Matheson Road, where the greatest receiver to wear blue and gold has added a stadium gate to a collection that started with a street.

“This is pretty cool,” Milt Stegall said. “I don’t take this for granted. There are a lot of greats that could have been one of the four.”

Stegall brings up Charles Roberts, the immensely talented running back who’s run the ball further than anybody in team history — without breaking a sweat, it seemed.

“The greatest athlete I’ve ever seen,” Stegall said. “I used to kill myself working out. And he did nothing... the fact he was just able to step on the field and do that, I’ve never seen anybody like that in my life.”

East of the monument to Stegall, at Gate 2 — and I’ve saved the best for last — the greatest quarterback to ever play for Winnipeg is posing for pictures with his grandkids.

Then just for old-time sake, 82-year-old Ken Ploen sticks out his left arm and cocks back his right, that classic 1950’s-era pose, as if he’s about to let loose one of those semi-spirals that helped produce four Grey Cups in a five-year span.

Ask Ploen who he’d choose if there was a fifth gate, and he rattles off names like they were siblings.

“It would either have to be Leo Lewis or Frank Rigney or Farrell Funston or Cornell Piper,” Ploen began. “Ed Kotowich, Gerry James — you name ’em. Doc Nielson. You don’t win without a good team. And we had some great teams.”

You wouldn’t know it by walking into the new stadium.

There’s still plenty of wall space, and not all of it has to be covered in ads.

A generation of fans has grown up, graduated from high school and earned a university degree without seeing this team win a championship.

Blue Bombers honouring all-time greats but are just scratching the surface

I’ve often said the Blue Bombers don’t do nearly enough to recognize their storied history.

Thursday they took a small step in the right direction, honouring the four players whose faces adorn the main entry points to the new stadium.

I say it’s a small step, because the Bombers need to do a lot more.

Once you get past the gates marking the careers of Ken Ploen, Joe Poplawski, Milt Stegal and Doug Brown, selected through fan voting, there’s not a single reminder of this team’s tradition, aside from a couple of posters inside the store.

There was supposed to be a Hall of Fame in the concourse. Somehow it got forgotten in the haste to construct the place on time, a year late, and on budget.

“I remember that being promoted,” Poplawski, a former board member, told me during a walk around the place. “I don’t know what happened to it.”

Thursday we heard some vague reference to the front office doing more, but it was short on specifics.